Welcome to Litsy!

A bit of French reading for a change. This book is a follow up to another I read by Joel Dicker and it‘s just as good as the first. Some of the returning characters are there along with new ones. Great ending, was not expecting it. This writer is great at surprising readers right at the end.

This Tuesday I went on an excursion to the setting of The Judge and his hangman with my 9th graders. It was a guided hike through the Twannbach gorge designed like an escape room/quiz. They had to listen to the clues given by actors at the original scenes to find out who was the murderer. Their reactions were mixed because it sometimes was a tough hike. I loved it. 🕵️‍♀️🙈🕵️‍♀️

Between a pick&so-so.I chose this book randomly in the Swiss second hand bookstore. The MC, a man in his 50s, travels back in time to visit his family & lover. His parents don‘t know who he is, his lover is a toddler, he has no money etc. unusual, original take on a walk down memory Lane but not really my cup of tea.

New episode just posted! This week we discuss “The Black Spider“ by Jeremias Gotthelf. This little known book, reprinted by the fabulous people over at NYRB, packs quite a punch in little over 100 pages. Gotthelf writes a tale with a little bit of everything, from idyllic country sides, to a menacing black spider all within a Christian allegory that makes for a rewarding reading experience.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1gV1ulTIGgsxFsFVmUbdRw

Weynfeldt is an art dealer in his late 50s who lives alone in Zurich.He has money&friends, some older (rich) some younger (artists&intellectuals, he supports some financially, it‘s not clear why).One night he meets a younger woman who barely gets by modelling&shoplifting&he falls for her.I didn‘t connect with the characters,the detailed descriptions of luxury clothing or expensive food aren‘t something I‘m interested in.

Last week of my daily 2 hour commute to and from work - summer break finally arrived. But so I was able to listen to all three of Dürrenmatt‘s murder mysteries. The last one was „Suspicion“. The cold description of the hospital where inspector Bärlach suspects a Nazi doctor made me cringe. Abd what stroke me weird was that Dürrenmatt obviously changed his thinking about typical murder mysteries (see post about The Pledge) because…

Listening to the second Dürrenmatt murder mystery, the first one with Kommisär Bärlach. I already read it last year and decided to read it with my class, so this is a nice way to recise it. ?

After I went to the guiddd tour about Dürrenmatt, I started to listen to The Pledge. It started well off with the meta level of the story being told to the author. I thought ghe ending was quite unsatisfactory, but then I read the background story of Dürrenmatt being disappointed about the endings of typical detective stories. This helped me to appriciate the ending more.

I went to a guided tour recently. It was about the life and the literary works a Friedrich Dürrenmatt - a famous Swiss author. It was not only a guided tour, but there have been parts with actors acting/reading out his life as well. This was the most interesting tour I went to. ???

Inter library loan came in!